Her
by Lennelle
Summary: Sam's deepest, darkest desire. Tag to 11x13.


Okay, so after watching the most recent episode I couldn't help but wonder how things would have gone if Sam had been cursed instead of Dean. Spoilers for 11x13.

* * *

It was a stupid thing to do, that's what Dean had said. In the moment, Sam hadn't dared to point out that Dean would have done it if he hadn't. Honestly, Sam didn't regret it. Not at all. The Qareen would have ripped Melissa's heart out of her chest right there in the motel room if Sam hadn't yanked her forward and planted his lips on hers.

It had given them enough time to confuse the Qareen, they'd had time to make a break for it.

That's what Sam keeps reminding himself; he did the right thing. Even so, he purposefully avoids Dean's gaze most of the time they're in the Salon.

He did the right thing. Yet he still can't help but worry about what shape the Qareen will appear to him in. He's terrified of seeing Jessica worn as a false face.

"You gonna be okay down here?" Dean asks him. He's already halfway up the stairs, having won rock-paper-scissors for the first time ever. He's staring at Sam with that annoying crease in his brow.

"I'm fine," Sam tells him, fiddling with the knife in his hand. "Hurry up and stab that freakin' heart."

Dean hesitates for a second, then nods and trots up the stairs and out of the basement. Sam paces, settles the knife properly in his grip. The basement smells like sawed wood and smoke, he wonders how many curses the witch had conjured right under the salon, how many people's deaths she's responsible for.

He can't hear anything upstairs so he assumes that Dean hasn't bumped into the witch yet. He takes comfort in the fact that Melissa can't be harmed, that her baby isn't an orphan yet. Sam, of all people, knows what it's like to be orphaned under supernatural circumstances.

He jumps when he hears footsteps on the other side of the basement. He raises his knife and tries to get a look at who, or what, it is but he can't see much beyond planks of wood and plastic sheets.

"Dean, did you do it?" he calls, hopeful. But after all these years he's learned that the worst possibility is always the only possibility. He sees her shadow now, behind the curtain, sees her lift her arm to pull it back, and he holds his breath as he waits for her. He hasn't seen her face in ten years.

But the Qareen doesn't have blond curls, it doesn't have blue eyes, it isn't tall and graceful like the woman he once loved.

"Ruby…" Sam can barely get his voice above a whisper.

She cocks her head to the side and considers him, curious. She's just as he remembers her; petite and slim, dark hair, and eyes that seem to cast a shadow over everything. So beautiful but so terrible all at once.

"You're surprised," she notes. She seems a little surprised herself. "You were expecting someone else?"

Sam shakes his head, trying to clear it. "Doesn't matter," he says, "You're not really her."

"No," she agrees. She studies him for a moment. "This one was a demon. Who are you?"

"No one."

"You're _someone_ who loved a demon," Ruby says. She moves forward, Sam moves back and he hits the wall. She keeps coming and Sam steps around the table, slowly.

"I didn't love her," Sam denies, "I hated her."

Ruby smirks, it's all too familiar. "I can see into your heart. I can see your deepest, darkest desire. If it means anything I had trouble picking a face for you. But in the end, this is what you keep in the deepest pit of your heart."

"No," Sam shakes his head. They're circling each other like cats. Sam raises the knife, points it towards her heart. He hadn't expected this, not for one moment. He'd thought of Ruby in the past, of course he had, but he never thought of her in the way he had when she was alive. He'd thought of her through red.

She'd destroyed him, once.

But here she is, too close to him, and she's raising her fist. Sam jumps to the side as her arm breaks through the wall behind him. He doesn't hesitate before running. The basement is filled with wood and brick and plastic sheets, there's not enough room to run straight and he tries to weave through the mess. She right behind him and she keeps throwing her fist, trying to grab him but each time he manages to jump out of the way before her fist cracks through the wall again.

Somehow, she manages to get him cornered. Ruby curls one hand around the collar of his jacket, her other is a fist, pulled back and aimed at his chest. Sam doesn't hesitate to thrust his knife between her ribs. He knows it won't kill her but she still stumbles a little.

She doesn't relinquish her grip on him as she stares down at the knife, then back up to him. She looks furious. Not like the real Ruby with her too-sweet words and quiet smiles, even when there was nothing but poison beneath it. She used to get angry at him, just like he'd get angry at her, and they'd always end up fucking with fingers pulling painfully at the other's hair, pushing and pulling. It was always intense and almost violent, but she never looked at him the way the Qareen does now, like it wants to kill him.

Ruby had wanted him to have everything, or so she had believed.

The Qareen's fist pulls back and Sam tries to ready himself for the inevitable, but she freezes. Ruby looks up at him and Sam can see the fear in her eyes. Her fingers go limp and she stumbles away from him. Sam watches as she screams, it looks like her skin is blowing away into dust, there's a light like blue flame. Then she's gone and Sam can't stop his hands from shaking.

When Dean comes running down a second later, a look of relief on his face when he sees Sam, he asks, "Are you okay?"

Sam finds it in himself to nod, even though he's not sure if it's true.

Dean steps forward slowly, taking in the destruction, the discarded knife on the floor, then Sam's pale face. "Was it…" he begins, like he can't say Jess' name in front of Sam, even now. "Was it her?"

"Yeah," Sam says, still staring at the spot where Ruby had been. "It was her."

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A/N Thank you so much for reading. Let me know what you think.

I had origninally planned a really sad fic where the Qareen appeared as Jess but then the whole 'deepest, darkest desire' thing made me think. Jess wouldn't have been a deepest, darkest desire. His love for her was nothing to be ashamed of, his relationship with Ruby certainly was dark.


End file.
